Happy New Year. It isn’t really fair, the older you get the fast time seems to pass. There is a reason for that perception and a way to slow “time” down but this isn’t the place to cover how that is done.

So, another year has passed. A lot was accomplished last year within Shin Ho Kwan. Here is a partial list:

Finished all the manuals for the color belts. They are all available on Amazon.com and students started receiving them upon passing their promotion exams.

The new 1st Dan/Poom promotion exam book was published. So now, instead of writing a paper, 1st Gups have an entire book to complete.

The “Puzzle” book was published. It contains puzzles to help 1st Gups get ready for their Black Belt exams.

The Shin Ho Kwan Award Coins arrived and were distributed to the Class ‘A’ Schools.

The 1st Dan Manual was published.

Ms. Cheung’s Book “The Path” was published. It is a collection of Short Stories based on the 10 Creeds of Shin Ho Kwan.

The Shin Ho Kwan Store went online and has been selling T-Shirts, Hats, Mugs, etc.

The New Shin Ho Kwan Web Page went online – You are reading this email on it.

Shin Ho Kwan and Plum Dragon Herbs collaborated to make the Shin Ho Kwan Dit Da Jow and it is available on Plum Dragon’s Web Page.

The Member Schools Page opened with newsletters, documents and other related Member School stuff. It will soon be shut down and moved to this web page.

The Class ‘A’ School Online Class page opened. It has monthly online classes taught be me.

The weekly Shin Ho Kwan Update Videos started being posted on Facebook.

Shin Ho Kwan has over 2,000 Twitter followers.

I’m sure I’m missing a lot more but I can’t remember off the top of my head what I’m missing.

I wonder what 2017 will bring?

The New Shin Ho Kwan Webpage Update

As I mentioned last month, the Shin Ho Kwan webpage is now online. This new site has a lot of new features:

A few weeks ago, Shin Ho Kwan (Myself, Master Shaffer and Mr. Dillon) had a conference call with Century’s top executives. The purpose of the call was to answer questions about Shin Ho Kwan, our history and the Black Belt Winter Retreat. A couple of months ago, Century approached us concerning sending some of their executives to the Winter Retreat. As of the call, 3 of these executives will be attending our retreat. This is a big deal as Century doesn’t typically send anyone to an event that they don’t sponsor or sell merchandise at. Hopefully this we lead to future collaboration on events and published material.

iSurvive Urban Survival Update

Due to the huge success of my iSurvive classes at Green Valley Range, the Range will be adding several additional iSurvive classes each month. These classes will be higher level survival classes that are smaller, more advanced and feature more hands on time. In addition, I will be teaching a lot of non-mainstream weapon classes: crossbow, blowgun, throwing knives, atlatl, bolas, throwing sticks, etc.

Finishing up the new Shin Ho Kwan Web Page

The new webpage has a lot of new features but it is far from complete. In the next few months I will be adding the following:

Adding all the currently available Shin Ho Kwan books to the Library Page.

Adding the black belt requirements to the Curriculum Page.

Adding the Facebook Posts to the Social Media Page.

Adding the upcoming Color Belt Promotion Exams to the Calendar Page.

and lots more….

Here is a list of some of the above mentioned crazy ideas (One less than last month):

You Build It – You Train It. Not new but I’ll finally be starting these.

Taekwondo In-Depth. I use to make sheets for Kyudo that were In-Depth Overviews of one aspect of Kyudo. For example, I made a Ya (arrow) Sheet that went into depth on every aspect of a Ya. The name for every part of the arrow (English & Japanese), how the Ya behaved while shot based of different Ya configurations and even the philosophy behind each of the two Ya’s. I would like to do that for every block and every strike and every kick we currently do in Shin Ho Kwan. That is a lot of sheets. To use a local store’s name – Holy Sheets

I believe I have mentioned this before but I have been contacted by a few schools expressing an interest in teaching only one or two things out of Shin Ho Kwan’s curriculum. They don’t want to become member schools. Years ago I made Modules up for the UTA and I will be using that same idea to pass on our material to them. For example, one school would like to teach our Knife Form. I will be making a Knife Module Book that covers the Knife Form and its applications, Foundation Techniques, One-Steps, Knife Defense, etc. These books will be available to the school at a wholesale price and they will then mark them up and sell them to their students. In addition, I will be recording videos and lectures for an online course for the instructors of the school. That way they know exactly how to teach all the material. This will benefit both Shin Ho Kwan and the school that uses our Modules. Currently I plan on making modules for all our weapons, joint locks, throws, and form sets.

Winter Retreat Best Picture Contest

This year we will continue the tradition started at last year’s Winter Retreat. We will give a prize to the person with the best photo taken at the Winter Retreat. Don’t forget you phones and take lots of pictures.